“Wyatt’s sister … is gone … tragically. His mind is still trying to wrap around that trauma. The grief. But I don’t think he is crazy. Let me put it this way. I lost part of a leg. But I’m not handicapped. You lost an eye, and neither are you. We are whole human beings existing the best we can without a part. And that’s Wyatt. That’s everybody who is a survivor. Everything moving forward will go a lot better if we agree on that.”
I don’t expect an answer, and I don’t get one. I hand out thirty-second philosophy to girls in my backseat all the time, most of which I believe.
I tell girls to buck up, be confident, fight back. I don’t coddle the ones I think are better off on their own than in a system that will break their spirits. Once I let them out my car door, a millisecond of doubt could kill them.
I disturb the dust on a half-dozen country roads until I’m sure no one is following us.
8
The girl straggles a few steps ahead of me, head down, feet bare and sunburned. Her thin dress, torn at the shoulder, plays a few inches above her knees. Around us, a fog of dust, the clatter of hammers, the growl of machines, the tall bones of a new subdivision rising.
I urge her to move a little faster up the walk, before one of the orange helmets turns in curiosity and a memory is formed of a house number, a cop, and a scrappily dressed teenager with reluctant body language.
I’ve brought girls here before, usually at night, when this street is as empty as a deserted movie set. The last two were teenagers running from a sex trafficking ring that drugged them, rolled them in rugs, crossed the border, and marketed them as toys during the testosterone-charged atmosphere of a Dallas Cowboy playoff game.
This safe house isn’t official or legal. It isn’t a cave flitting with shadow girls or a compound with hunky security guys and constant Chinese food delivery.
It is a one-level ranch house on a street still new enough to befuddle Google Maps.
My cousin Maggie, short for Magdalene, answers on the first knock. Maggie is balancing an infant with eyes that shine like hers did the day I saved her from a bat. People have always said that Maggie is blessed by light and good luck—that usually angels, not bats, watch over her, which is what you’d hope if you’re named after a saint.
The truth is, bad things have happened to my cousin.
Two days after Maggie’s twelfth birthday, her mother swallowed a handful of pills on purpose and almost died. When I lost my leg, Maggie felt like she lost hers. Her other sweet daughter, Lola, was born a premature peanut, with a ten percent chance of surviving. No, my cousin is not charmed. Her empathy and resilience just make it appear that way.
Maggie urges us through the door, shuts it, throws the chain, and punches a security code. That, in broad daylight, is the first sign this house is different.
While Maggie assesses the girl at my side, the girl assesses her new territory. The black film on every window that lets you see out but not in. The plastic litter of toddler and infant gear, the laundry pile of doll-sized clothes, the chimney of Costco diapers. A naked toddler shrieking and circling the back yard on the other side of the patio door, arms out like a bird. The television flickering with a cartoon shark chasing cartoon fish.
A few feet away, on the dining room table, a laptop glows blue. Files, photographs, yellow legal pads, and books are stacked in organized piles—an online law school course that is part of Maggie’s deep dive into the plight of children at the border.
My eyes light on the giant carved wooden angel wings that hang over the sofa, a gift that Maggie, a minimalist, hung only because they were such a sincere wedding present from her mother-in-law. Those wings inspired the code name for this unofficial safe house whose phone number is passed around in furtive whispers: Cielo or Heaven, depending on which side of the border you were born.
Everything about Maggie is short. Her height, her hair, and her temper, which is usually directed in the defense of others. She is my surrogate sister, my comrade in arms, and my best friend. Our favors to each other run long and deep—we argue about whose rescue complex is bigger (hers), whose favor debt is bigger (mine), whether our compulsive need to save people is inherited (yes).
Maggie’s dad and my father were such a tight, powerful duo in this town that people said you could see no sunlight between the brothers. My father worked thirty-nine years as a cop until he put his head down on his desk and never picked it up again. Maggie’s father is still dunking sins off people as pastor at the First Baptist Church. He’s wary about Maggie exposing his grandchildren to a revolving door of lost souls even though that’s the kind of house she grew up in.
“Sorry for the mess,” Maggie apologizes. “I’m working three cases and studying for a test. Rod’s conked out in the bedroom after his shift in the ER.” She turns to the girl. “Hi, sweetie. Welcome. Don’t be put off by this. I’m a respectable law student who doesn’t always smell like spit-up. I’m going to help you. And my husband’s a good cook. If he ever wakes up, he’s going to make us dinner.”
Maggie whips around at a shriek in the back yard. “Shit!” she mutters. “Literally. Lola has a new thing. She takes off all her clothes and poops in the grass. It’s like taking care of a drunken elf on suicide watch.”
“Where is your new babysitter?” I ask.
“Celebrating her birthday. That should not involve pooper-scooping our back yard or dealing with this sweetie in my arms who has decided not to nap anymore. Rod has been sleeping every night on the edge of the bed with his hand dangling in the bassinet because Beatrice won’t close her eyes unless another person is touching her. A finger or a toe will do, but take it away at your own peril. He seriously asked me the other night if you knew of someone who could make a prosthetic hand that is warm like flesh for her to sleep with.”
Maggie is holding out Beatrice, not to me, but to the girl. “Do you mind taking the baby for a sec?” This move is purposeful—part of Maggie’s philosophy that babies work magic. We both know the worst way to handle a vulnerable girl is to make her the center of attention. Demonstrate trust. Don’t ask a million questions right away.
Still, it surprises me that the girl fits Beatrice onto her hip in a natural motion, like she’s a missing piece of a puzzle.
“Lola! Get over here, now.” Maggie is sliding open the glass patio doors.
“You’re good with her,” I say to the girl, who is gently bouncing a happy Beatrice. “How should I introduce you to my cousin? I’d like to call you something besides girl.”
She hesitates before pointing to the kitschy pair of wings over the sofa. “Well, OK, then. We’ll stick with Angel,” I say. And you not talking.
Rod emerges from the hallway in wrinkled scrubs, running a hand over hair that is already graying in his thirties.
I’m guessing he was roused by the events erupting in his back yard. More shrieks of glee. More yelling by Maggie. More chasing. A garden hose is now involved.
“I keep telling Maggie not to react, to ignore Lola,” he says, “but she is certain this pooping thing isn’t a phase, nor is her habit of cussing like a tiny blond sailor. She thinks that if we don’t get things in hand, Lola will soon be locked up in a Texas prison for toddlers.” He smiles at Angel. “Odette, introduce me.”